Venice in a Day

Altona used to suffer frequent flooding from waters coming from Cherry Lake and Truganina Swamp. In January 1963, a large part of Altona was flooded. On 29 January 1963, water came down Kororoit Creek like a tidal wave in the morning. Nellie Street (old name of Civic Parade) was flooded to 4 feet and houses were inundated with 3 feet of water. Five streets between Nellie Street and the beach were flooded, affecting 400 homes. The floodwaters spread to adjoining Seaholme in the afternoon but receded by 5 p.m.

The Board of Works (now Melbourne Water) had subsequently constructed levee banks at Cherry Lake and Truganina Swamp to protect residential areas from flooding.

Due to La Niña and Cyclone Yasi, Melbourne had a very wet summer this year. On Friday 4th February this year, torrential rains lashed Melbourne, with the south eastern suburbs such as Lyndhurst, Narre Warren and Dandenong being the worst hit (Ref 1, 2, 3). From my home in Altona, I could hear heavy rains outside pouring through the night. I learnt that there were blackouts in most parts of Altona and Altona Meadows on that day. Fortunately, our power supply was not affected, having seen the lights flickered only twice. The next morning, my wife jested to me that our street was submerged in water. Though the street remained wet, there was no sign of flooding. However, when I was looking at Youtube videos recently, I discovered that people had uploaded videos of flooding in Altona, which appeared really pretty serious.

Below is a video, in which the author described Civic Parade as Civic River.

Below are a few videos showing that flooding in Altona Meadows was equally bad. Click on the video thumbnails to view the video. When I showed my wife these Youtube videos, she was pretty amazed too. She recalled that when she brought the kids to Altona Library for Rhymetime, she noticed one part of the libary was cordonedoff and there was some sort of stale smell. Probably, the floodwater had entered the library.